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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719865">Are You Fearless Anymore?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Magic/pseuds/Twisted_Magic'>Twisted_Magic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Movies - Nolan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Broken Bones, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fear, Gen, Introspection, Movie 1: Batman Begins (2005), POV Bruce Wayne, POV Third Person, Songfic, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:53:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,322</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Magic/pseuds/Twisted_Magic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne thought he knew fear. After all of his training with the League of Shadows, he thought that he knew all of the fears that he possessed, and that he had confronted and controlled them all. Bruce was wrong.</p><p>~ </p><p>Bruce struggles with controlling fear during the events of Batman Begins. Set to the lyrics of Walking On The Sky by Alter Bridge.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Are You Fearless Anymore?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I recently rewatched Batman Begins for the first time in years, and I was inspired to write my first Nolanverse fic! Coincidentally, this is my 15th published fic, and it’s been 15 years since the movie was released. (i.e., this fic has been a long time coming in two ways). I’ve never made a songfic before either, but I realized that this song fits with what I already wrote, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I hope you enjoy reading!</p><p>The title and lyrics are from the song Walking On The Sky by Alter Bridge. You can listen to the song (and the album it's on) on Spotify <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/3CDDZa8pfzfxfDdtm7g84B?highlight=spotify:track:2aUW0JI6eSmfvNRfIwcrdC">here</a>, or watch the lyrics video on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi55rJbGSw8">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bruce Wayne thought he knew fear. After all of his training with the League of Shadows, he thought that he knew all of the fears that he possessed, and that he had confronted and controlled them all.</p><p>Bruce was wrong.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You have wondered in the storm </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Are you fearless anymore </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Though you don't need to escape </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All these questions still remain </em>
</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Bruce is surrounded by bats. This has happened multiple––too many––times before, but this is the first time in a long time that it has terrified the <em> shit </em> out of him. Why is it suddenly so scary? The monstrous face of a scarecrow looming before him is just as terrifying, and Bruce doesn’t understand why.</p><p>Why why Why <em> hwyhw? </em></p><p>He grapples with these fears, fears that don’t want to be confronted and controlled like they’re supposed to, damn it.</p><p>To make matters worse, he’s lit on fire.</p><p>Bruce has never been afraid of fire. It provides light, warmth, and a cozy, relaxing place to read a book in the evenings when life gets just a little bit more stressful than usual. This fire is anything but cozy and relaxing, and as it consumes his cape with its licking flames, he is consumed.</p><p>Bruce, the Batman, master and symbol of fear, is consumed by fear.</p><p>He falls out of the building. He meant to jump, jump to safety, but he falls and hits the rain soaked ground, surrounded by fire and water and the heavy heady grip of pure <em> terror </em> , and <em> fuck </em> he’s tripping over his own feet with disorientation and desperation.</p><p>Bruce phones Alfred for help.</p><p>He can’t help himself.</p><p>He can’t do this alone.</p><p>He. Can’t. Do. This.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Bruce shakes off the lingering memories of the terror he felt under the influence of Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin.</p><p>It was just a drug, after all.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> The question still remains </em>
</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>The night air is crisp, and the cool wind gently whips his cape into rippling around his hunched form. Bruce flexes the fingers of his left hand where it rests on the gargoyle he is crouching on. He had grappled up here in order to provide himself with a good view to scan the streets that stretch out and tangle around themselves below him.</p><p>He has quickly grown accustomed to surveying the city from high vantage points such as this on one of the many highrises of Gotham. He knew it would be a valuable skill to acquire and a useful habit to build. He’s now grateful that he has when it allows him to spot a commotion in an alley inbetween the next two buildings over on this right.</p><p>Bruce swiftly stands, activates the current in his cape, and swoops down through the air. There’s a drop in his stomach from the motion, but it’s the last thing on his mind once the screams of a woman cut through the air. He lands on the edge of a building above the alley and quickly surveys the scene below.</p><p>A group of six men––one with a crowbar, two with guns––surround a woman, who cowers in fear against the opposite alley wall. She raises a can of pepper spray in her shaking hand, but one of the men knocks it out of her grip and laughs. The menacing laughter of the men are a sharp contrast to the woman gasping in wavering breaths.</p><p>There is evil in too many citizens of Gotham. Bruce is suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that awful people are present in every nook and cranny of this city. He suddenly fears that Gotham might be past saving.</p><p>But fear does not stop him this time. </p><p>It fuels him.</p><p>Bruce drops down from the ledge. He lands on top of one of the men holding a gun, who yelps and crumples below his heavy boots. The other five men shout in alarm. The other armed man raises his gun and immediately fires three times, but Bruce ignores the thuds on his armour and strides towards the man in two steps. Bruce simultaneously grabs his wrist in one hand and slams down on his arm with his own forearm, causing the man to let out a scream of his own as a bone audibly snaps. </p><p>Bruce flings the gun that slips from the man’s grip to the side at an oncoming attacker, and turns in time to block a punch from him. A solid jab to the man’s jaw sends him to the ground as well. Bruce stumbles, however, when the crowbar comes down between his shoulder blades. He whips around, his swirling cape distracting the last armed man for enough time for Bruce to kick him in the chest. He clutches at his chest as he tries to gulp in air. Once Bruce spots the sixth man running out of sight around the corner of the end of the alley, he leans down and punches the prone man to successfully knock him out.</p><p>The only remaining sound is the woman breathing.</p><p>“Tha-thank you,” the woman says in between her stuttering but slowing breaths. She stares at the Batman with wide eyes, though it’s not with fear (an expression that Bruce knows intimately well); no, she looks up at him with hope. </p><p>“You’re just what this city needs,” she states assuredly.</p><p>Before Bruce can even nod in response, she picks up her discarded pepper spray can from the ground and jogs out of the alley back to the street behind Bruce.</p><p>No matter how much Bruce fears for this city––<em> his </em> city––he knows he can suck it up, turn it into motivation, and do what needs to be done. His people are going to be able to recover in the end, just like that woman did in a matter of seconds.</p><p>Bruce is going to pull his city back from the fucking brink with his own two fists.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Above the ground you see the world </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You feel a rush at every turn </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And if you fall at least you tried </em>
</p><p>
  <em> As you tremble on the wire </em>
</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Wayne Manor is burning down. </p><p>Bruce’s home is on fire, and falling down around him, and the only thing he is worried about is if Alfred is safe or not. Bruce is about to <em> die </em>, and his only concern is if Alfred is still alive. Bruce’s chest is tight and it’s a struggle to breath, but he knows that it’s only partially because of the smoke choking his lungs: Bruce Wayne, billionaire extraordinaire, the man who can buy anything (but not his family back), is crippled with fear for Alfred’s life. It’s like a punch to the face when he realizes he hasn’t felt afraid on behalf of another person before. </p><p><em> Fucking hell, </em> as if it wasn’t enough to just deal with his own fears, now his connection with fear involves a whole other person.</p><p>That’s his last thought before something lands on him and crushes him to the floor.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Bruce has never felt so grateful to see another person in his life. Seeing Alfred alive is everything, and this newfound fear rushing away in place of relief is a greater weight being lifted from his chest than the wooden support beam he heaves off of himself. Alfred looks just as relieved to see Bruce alive. </p><p>Alfred helps drag him to safety. They rush out of the manor together, just barely escaping the reach of the roaring flames. Bruce never wants Alfred to ever again get this close to the danger that surrounds Bruce like a shroud, even though Alfred saved him. Bruce knows then that he would gladly put his own life on the line to save another’s, to keep them away from harm, self-preserving fear be damned.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Do you feel alive </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Tempting your fate on the line </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Pushing death to the fray </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Making one last great escape </em>
</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Bruce fears for his city and citizens. The streets are flooding with clouds of Fear Toxin, the League of Shadows is actively trying to destroy the city, and there’s a very real chance that Gotham and its people won’t survive this.</p><p>Bruce overlooks the swarm of hysteric people, fighting mentally warped versions of each other, as he stands poised and battle ready on a ledge. When he pushes up off the ledge and swoops through the air, he doesn’t know if the chill that runs down his spine is from the air’s cold temperature, or from the sight of his city below him tearing itself apart through fear (the very thing he has been training to subdue and fighting to eradicate). </p><p>As Bruce now knows, when he fears for people other than himself, the safety of said people is something that is not always up to him, and so this fear is harder to control, or may not even be capable of being subdued. Bruce can’t let go of this fear.</p><p>Not until he personally restores the safety of all of his people.</p><p>Not until he puts his own life on the line in order to save their lives.</p><p>Bruce manages the fear manifesting around him on a small scale, at first. He breaks up a few fights, he rescues Rachel and ensures her safety, he scatters roiling crowds with his evidently nightmarish appearance.</p><p>Then, Bruce turns his attention to the main threat: the League of Shadows. Bruce finds it ironic that the very organization that helped him to (initially) gain control over his fear is now the very thing aiming to bring Gotham to its knees through application of fear. He supposes there is more than one way in which to control and master fear.</p><p>Bruce leaves the GCPD to handle the situation here. He is the only one who can stop Ra’s al Ghul and fully save his city.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Here you stand all alone </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Above the crowd the air is cold </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Losing balance where you can't let go </em>
</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>Bruce ascends to the monorail car. It is time for him to face the man who taught him to overcome his fears, to face them head on and force them into submission. It is time for Bruce to fulfill his duty to protect his city and his people. To do so, he must turn Ra’s al Ghul teachings against him: overcome the cause for fear by facing him head on and forcing him into submission.</p><p>Despite the fact that Bruce has single handedly fought off hordes of people multiple times before, this fight still manages to be one of the most intense he has engaged in thus far. Ra’s is a strong and skilled fighter even under regular circumstances––as Bruce already knows from countless training sessions during his time with the League of Shadows––but here, in Bruce’s own city, on a train spreading terror as the vaporizer evaporates the drugged water below it, and hurtling towards unstoppable mass spread of Scarecrow’s hallucinogen, Bruce is scared <em> shitless </em>. His heart races, his pulse pounds in his ears and in the fingers he has curled into fists, and dread overwhelms his senses.</p><p>But as he kicks Ra’s with all of his hatred for him adding greater force behind his foot, Bruce reminds himself that fear can be used. Shoving his fears down into the dark recesses of his soul and calling it control was a mistake (besides, why should he think kindly towards anything Ra’s al Ghul promotes?). The only way Bruce will ever actually be <em> free </em> from fear will be to stop trying to lock it away (like he tried and failed to do as a small child watching his father cover up that hole to the cave), and to only view fear as something at his disposal. Bruce realizes that he will be able to achieve true control and mastery of fear after recognizing that it can be utilized: it can be chained up like a dog, be used as a motivating fuel biting at his heels, and be turned against and set on Gotham’s enemies.</p><p>Bruce does just that.</p><p>The pounding pulse of blood becomes a rhythm for Bruce to throw his punches to. The dread increasing in intensity in his system are his instincts telling him that the train is moments away from reaching the main water hub. The all-consuming worries for the safety of Gotham and his people are what gives Bruce the overwhelming conviction to deal the final blow to the threat to his city.</p><p>As Bruce had ordered Sergeant Gordon to do, the monorail support tower is blasted. Bruce is prepared for the destruction of the monorail car; he holds the attention of Ra’s––keeping him from making a plan of escape just under the wire––until right before it leaves the tracks. Bruce gets himself into the safety of the open air, and as he briefly hovers above the fragmented line of the tracks, he watches Ra’s al Ghul––the one person in the city he decided not to save––fall to his fiery death.</p><p>The explosion destroys the water vaporizer along with the leader of the League of Shadows. The threat to Gotham has been eliminated, and Bruce knows that once the antidote to Scarecrow’s hallucinogen is administered to the intoxicated people, Gotham will recover. Not only that, but Bruce also succeeded in truly controlling his fears for the betterment of himself and his city, and he is determined that for the rest of his life, he will continue to do everything he can to save his people from their fears.</p><p>That is what he was fucking born to do.</p><p>As Bruce Wayne, the Batman, saviour and hero of Gotham, gazes through the dissipating clouds of Fear Toxin and smoke from the blazing monorail car, he finally feels free from fear.</p><p> </p><p>✕ ✕ ✕</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Here and now in the clouds you have found your escape </em>
</p><p>
  <em> For all you give it's worth the risk </em>
</p><p>
  <em> At least you've lived your own way </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You're on the line </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Walking on the sky</em>
</p><p> </p>
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